Looking on the Bright Side.

A bookshop in Bristol, the name of which I will not mention, has returned “House of Shadows”. Much sadness and gnashing of teeth occurred followed by a slide into misery and despair.

Not an unusual state for a writer, but for once I eschewed the TLC and made myself have a good long think about the why this sort of situation provokes such an extreme reaction.

In every other form of business no one expects to succeed every time , or indeed to sell every item on offer, why then did the non-sale of a book make me feel so bad?

Theobvious answer was that books are somehow part of you and rejecting your creation is being rejected yourself and it hurts. Of course that isn’t true; it’s the book itself that isn’t wanted; the shop might not have had space on its shelves; its subject might not have appealed to…